Related articles

The footage was captured by plane-spotting site Airlive, which suggested the celestial body was a shooting star.

Tweeting the clip from its official account, the site said: "Look at that amazing shooting star our cam just caught in the sky of Heathrow Airport!"

AIRLIVE

The bright white burning object soars over the skies above Heathrow moments before a plane lands

Clemens Rumpf, a visiting specialist in space debris at the University of Southampton, told the Mail Online he believed the spectacle was of a large meteor.

He said: "These events occur harmlessly multiple times a year but can be spectacular when caught on camera.

"There was probably no immediate danger for any passenger aircraft as these objects tend to burn up, as seen in the footage, at altitudes of 20 to 45 miles (30 to 70 km), well above the flight level of planes."